Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Oh baby, baby

I've been noticing my growing belly a lot the past couple of days. Chris has been noticing it too! He likes to tease me by asking what I ate! Ha! I am still to the point where if you didn't know I was pregnant, you probably wouldn't notice it, or if you did, you might just think that I had enjoyed a big lunch!

I am 15 weeks today. My sister told me she thought I'd probably be starting to wear maternity clothes by around 15 weeks, but when she said that I was 12 weeks, and I thought there would be no way. I am still fitting in my regular clothes okay, but my pants are getting a little bit snug. I could see myself needing to wearing some maternity stuff by Christmas, but we'll see.



I don't go back to the doctor for a couple more weeks, but here's the info from my first couple of visits.

I went in for lab work at 4 weeks and 1 day, which was the day after I found out I was pregnant. They did a blood test to check for pregnancy and repeated it two days later. They said both blood tests were positive and that my levels of hCG were doubling beautifully!

The first ultrasound was at 7 weeks exactly, and the baby's heartbeat was 140. My ultrasound was moved up a few days from my first appointment because I was concerned about lots of pain on one side of my abdomen. I was worried that there might be something wrong, so they move it up a week and a half! That's the earliest they said they'd be able to see what they needed to see on an ultrasound. I guess it was all just normal pregnancy pains because I found out at my actual doctor's appointment a week and half later that the baby was measuring right on schedule and that everything looked fine as far as they could tell. Most importantly, to ease my worries, the pregnancy was in the right place!

My first doctor's appointment was at 8 weeks and 2 days. I was 129.8 pounds, which is pretty close to my normal weight and my blood pressure was 110/60. Because my ultrasound was a week and half before this appointment and it was too early to pick up the baby's heartbeat on a Doppler, they let me sneak an abdominal ultrasound to check the baby's heartbeat since they weren't too busy in ultrasound. They said it might be too early to see anything with this type of ultrasound, but were willing to try! They didn't take any pictures or measurements, but they put the monitor on my belly long enough to let me peak at the baby and get a reading on the heartbeat, which was 192! I about jumped up off the table when they told me it was that high! The tech told me not to freak out. She said fetal heart rates get really high between 8 and 10 weeks and assured me it was fine! She said it would start to come back down between 10 and 12 weeks. I was really nervous, so I am sure my heartbeat was sky high too. I am still wondering if that has anything to do with the baby's being so high.

My second appointment at 12 weeks and 6 days was quick. Well, the appointment itself was, but waiting to talk to the financial counselor, waiting in the lab for a urine analysis (which is a part of every appointment) and waiting on getting my flu shot afterwards was not! I thought I might miss my appointment time! I asked one of the nurses why the lab was so crazy, and she said that Mondays aren't good days for lab work because it's always so busy. That's valuable information for scheduling future appointments! I had gained 1.6 pounds and was weighing in at 131.4. My blood pressure was still 110/60. The baby's heartbeat was 170! I was so relieved that they were able to easily capture it on a Doppler and that it had lowered since my last visit!

At lot of people have asked me how I am feeling. I've been pretty lucky so far. I can only complain of the normal pregnancy aches and pains. I was having some pelvic bone pain for a few weeks, which is very early for this type of pain and it caused me to worry thinking it would eventually become unbearable. However, after coming off progesterone a couple of weeks ago, I have been a little better as long as I don't lift anything too heavy or cross my legs for long periods of time. The high levels of hormones during pregnancy are what causes the ligaments to get too loose too early, and that's what causes the weird pains. I was put on progesterone through my first trimester as a precaution because of my medical history and due to some bleeding very early on. I am glad I was able to come back off of it though. I had to take it right before bedtime because it made me feel pretty crappy. I was very nauseated between 6 weeks and 9.5-10 weeks. I only threw up one time though, and I have been fine as far as morning sickness for the last 5 weeks. I guess I am feeling pretty good now because I am in the blissful second trimester.

I have been struggling with worrying too much lately. I guess carrying around another life has gotten me a bit nervous. I know that everything is in God's hands and that whatever happens is supposed to, whether that means a healthy baby or not, but I still turn to worrying about things. Please pray for me. I worry that something will go wrong with the pregnancy, and to be honest, something could and that wouldn't necessarily be outside of God's will. I know that sometimes he puts us through trials so that we love and trust him more. I think that's what scares me so much. On the other hand, I know that God never gives us anything we can't handle, so just pray that I remember that every day and that I wouldn't worry so much. Plus, I don't want to drive my husband crazy.

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